Breakthrough wind turbine produces drinking water

What if your source of electricity also gave you clean drinking water?

That’s the promise of new technology developed by the French engineering firm Eole Water, first conceived in the late 90s by a man who collected water from his air conditioner. He reasoned that if an air conditioner could help him accumulate water, so could other types of machines, so he set about merging the production of electricity and water.

Today, that dream is alive and well. Eole’s turbines are currently undergoing rigorous tests in Abu Dhabi following months of development and fine tuning in France. The company says that each turbine is capable of producing up to 1,000 liters of clean drinking water per day, or about 62 per hour, simply by filtering moisture out of the air and funneling it to a storage tank below.

Thibault Janin, Eole’s director of marketing, told CNN reporter Eoghan Macguire that the turbines can cost up to $790,000, and that the company is targeting poor, water-starved regions like Africa, South America and Indonesia first.

“We have just started the commercial aspect of this product but the price is not that expensive when you compare it with the long term solution that it gives,” he reportedly said.

Over 884 million people struggle for or go without access to clean water on a daily basis, according to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The director warned recently that the world faces a growing potential for water being used as a “weapon” unless rapid improvements in technology can mitigate the growth of drought weary communities.

This video is from Eole Water, published to YouTube on April 24, 2012.

About the Author

Stephen C. Webster is the senior editor of Raw Story, and is based out of Austin, Texas. He previously worked as the associate editor of The Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, where he covered state politics and the peace movement’s resurgence at the start of the Iraq war. Webster has also contributed to publications such as True/Slant, Austin Monthly, The Dallas Business Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Weekly, The News Connection and others. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenCWebster.